Freedom Focus Photography
Welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast, the essential audio hub for portrait photographers eager to launch and elevate their businesses to achieve their ideal version of success.
Hosted by Nicole Begley, a former zoological animal trainer turned accomplished family and then pet/equine photographer, this podcast is your go-to resource for transforming your photographic passion into a thriving business.
Since making the leap into photography in 2010 and quickly scaling her business to six figures, Nicole has dedicated herself to guiding photographers like you to transform their businesses from low-profit, high-stress operations into a profitable, sustainable businesses by teaching how to confidently price your services, sell products, and attract higher-paying clients.
Join Nicole and a vibrant community of like-minded photographers on the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast. Together, we'll explore the paths to a profitable photography business that supports the life you've always envisioned.
Freedom Focus Photography
Using Video to Book More Clients with Andrew Hellmich
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045 - How do you create a personal connection with potential new clients, when their inboxes are overflowing and they're unlikely to answer the phone? According to Australian photographer and podcast host Andrew Hellmich, the secret to standing out is video.
In this engaging episode, Andrew shares a long list of ideas, resources, and insider tricks for using video to boost your business. And don't worry—his ideas are as simple to execute as they are brilliant. Leave your DSLR on the shelf, and start leveraging the power of quick-and-easy videos to fill your calendar.
What To Listen For:
- The importance of giving a face to your personal brand
- A simple strategy to build relationships with local businesses
- Who you should invite to crash your videos (your viewers will thank you!)
- How to leverage short, simple videos to rank higher in search
- What it means to use a "dog-whistle headline"
- Ways to repurpose your video content for maximum mileage
After listening to this episode, there's no doubt you'll be convinced of the value of using video. But if you're feeling awkward or unsure about the execution side, you'll want to join Andrew's Daily Vlog Challenge. It's a safe space for getting comfy with video, and he's giving away spots to FIVE lucky winners! Be sure to listen 'til the end for details.
Resources From This Episode:
- PhotoBiz Xposed
- Daily Vlog Challenge
- Nicole's appearance on Andrew's podcast
- Brian Bossamy on Andrew's podcast
- BombBomb (video email with built-in GIFs)
- Loom (screen and video recording software)
- Bonjoro (desktop recorder and mobile app)
- Rev (video transcription service)
- Enter to win a free spot in the Daily Vlog Challenge!
- Hair of the Dog Academy
- Hair of the Dog Facebook group
- Hair of the Dog Elevate
CONNECT + LEARN MORE:
Explore all things photography education at nicolebegleyedu.com
Ready to build a profitable photography business? Visit freedomfocusformula.com
Master the craft of pet photography at hairofthedogacademy.com
Follow along on Instagram - @nicolebegleyofficial
Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today we are talking with Andrew helmet about how to use video to book more clients. This is a good one. You're going to want to stick around.
Speaker 2Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host pet photographer , travel addicts, chocolate martini , connoisseur sewer, Nicole Begley.
Speaker 1Hey everybody. Welcome back to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley and I am so excited that you are here with us. Again. I can't believe we are almost done with 2020, who is with me that they are ready to say goodbye, 2020. Hello, 2021. So today's podcast is going to be a great way to start your 2021 with some new ways to incorporate video into your business. Now, before you say, Oh my gosh, Nicole, I don't want to be in video. No way, no way. Keep that video away from me. I like to be behind the camera, not in front of it. Well, I've got news for you . You guys, we run personal brands. We need to be the face of our business and to do that, we need to be in front of the camera sometimes. And the best way to book more clients is to make a connection with those clients. And we're getting to the point where getting people from your website onto the phone, which has been kind of the best way to convert people for quite a long time in the photography industry, it's becoming more and more challenging. People are busy. People don't want to stop to pick up the phone. People don't want to commit to coming in for a consultation without knowing all the details. But using video is a great way to bridge that gap, to make that connection, to help more inquiries, take more steps with your business and get them to take that next step of meeting you or talking to you so that you can book them in. And as client now, we're not just talking to inquiries, even though that is super helpful and something we all can use, especially heading into a new year. We're also talking about how in two's video in a numerous other ways that will help you grow your business from outreach to other potential partner businesses that you might want to co-market with, to social media, to YouTube, to SEO, really we're covering it all in this podcast. So you definitely want to stick around and actually you really, really, really want to stick around to the end because Andrew is super generous and is giving away five spots to something really awesome. I don't want to let the cat out of the bag. Now you're going to have to stick around till the end to find out, but you can win a seat one to five and it's going to be awesome and you're going to love it. So stay tuned and enjoy. Hey, everybody, Nicole here from hair of the dog. And I have a super special guest with me all the way from Australia. I have Andrew helmets from PhotoBiz exposed with us. So welcome Andrew to the hair of the dog podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm excited
Speaker 3To do this.
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah, me too. I'm super excited to have you here. And today we're going to be talking a little bit about video and how, how awesome that is to start to work into our business and the benefits. So before we dive into that, Andrew, tell us a little bit about you and where you're from, what you do, all that good stuff, just in case people haven't heard of you yet.
Speaker 3Yeah. I'm going to Australian based wedding and portrait photographer. I've been in business for over 20 years with my wife, Linda, we've had two studios at one stage, multiple shooters, and we've sort of brought it back to more a home-based business now. And I started PhotoBiz X, which is an interview based business focused podcast for photographers about seven years ago. We're up to episode I think 350 something. And yeah , I love what I get to do. And yeah, talking to people like, yo , you've been on the show as well. And you're hearing, hearing some great business advice and sharing that with listens to chat . Yeah.
Speaker 1We'll have to link that up into the podcast. And I know you just had a , my good friend Craig on recently from New Zealand , um , Craig Turner Bullock . Yeah. And , uh, all sorts of good stuff on that podcast. You guys definitely want to check that out for sure. But yeah, let's talk a little bit about video. Like I guess what are the benefits of video? Why, why do us as photographers even care about video, especially when we're saying we should be on the video and everyone's hiding under their desks.
Speaker 3Yeah . So just to be a hundred percent clear, the videos that we're talking about is actually getting the photographer , the listener on video, talking to their perspective client. And I think already some people are like, Whoa, that's scary. Most photographers like being behind the camera. But I think what we're all striving to do as photographers and people in business is to get known in our local area, be seen as the local expert photographer or dog or pet photographer and to make a connection with our clients and what I do find Nicole. And I'm sure you found the same thing is once we actually get in front of a client, that's when we make a connection. Usually that's when the client books that's when we, you know, we have a great time in the session, the sale goes well, but it's, it's just that initial connection. We need to get that happening, I guess, faster or more quickly than I don't want to say competitors, but other dog photographers, let's be the person to make that connection.
Speaker 1Yeah. I just mentioned this really quick before we started and it comes up here. It's just like the, I think the biggest pain point for most boutique photography businesses right now. Cause we know like, Hey, you don't want to just plaster your prices all over your website. You want people to call you, you want to get in touch with them. You want to explain your value and all that stuff. Like getting people on the phone in 2020, even though we're all working from home is harder than ever, but so important. So this little video option becomes such an incredible way to start to make that connection in a way that you know, that we just really need to, because then people start to make that connection with you and then getting them on the phone becomes a heck of a lot, easier to move forward to hopefully book your services.
Speaker 3Yeah, I agree. A hundred percent. And as a, primarily a wedding photographer for the 20 years, like I said, I found that once I had the couple in front of me, there was a connection and we could relate. They saw me and they booked of the time.
Speaker 1That's how the , yeah, that's said that happens for me too. If I can get a prospective client on the phone or if I can get them to gosh, especially before the land of COVID, we would sometimes do a in-person I'd offer the ability for them to come and do an in-person consultation prior. And if they did that a hundred percent booked, but getting them even just getting them on the phone, it's become, I think so much harder than when I first started in business 10 years ago. Just because people are so much busier.
Speaker 3Yeah. And I always hear too from, from younger photographers than me. And I'm not saying I'm old, but I'm a younger photographers. I say that almost afraid of the phone. They don't want to use the phone. Then they tell them, they tell me that their clients don't want to use the phone to video. Like it is the easiest way and the most relaxed way to get your face in front of the client, show off your personalities , show off your smile, show off your humor. If you have any and um , and make a connection. That's super easy .
Speaker 1I love it. I love it. So for our listeners that are at home, like quaking in their boots right now and maybe thinking like, Oh man, I mean, my camera does video, but I don't even know where to start, which I don't know about you. But whenever I do Facebook lives in my group or heck even recorded videos for challenges and even some of my content and the hair of the dog Academy, I use the sucker right here, this phone cause these , these iPhones , um , and any newer phone has a pretty decent camera on it. So are you recommending people use that? Do they have to set up like this whole big system? What do you recommend for creating some good video?
Speaker 3The whole idea is this is really easy. So for me personally, I'm , I'm recording video email replies to , to subscribers, to client inquiries. I'm doing this daily, so it's gotta be super easy. So phone is a great solution for me and even easiest solution is my webcam. So you can use the one on your laptop. Um, I'm using a Logitech HD webcam. They're not expensive. So I know that when I'm sitting at my desk here, where I work and do my editing, I can just click record and bang the videos. And I look , uh , total out to be transparent here. I do have a nice video light next to me, which just buys into the white wall in front of me. I've got some nice lighting on my face, but it's nothing expensive. It's not fancy. You don't need to have extra lighting, but you do want to be reasonably well lit and have good ones .
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I always tell people at least like just face the window, fairly close to a decent window. Usually have some nice light on your face. I have no light on me right now because we are , uh , having another , uh , remnant from, Oh my gosh. There's so been so many hurricanes that hit the Southeast United States this year and they just all like, come up through here. They're done. And now it's just rain. So it's just great and yucky out today, but that's okay. That's all right. We don't actually need this video because it's a podcast. So yeah. So where would maybe our pet photographers think about starting or like what's an easy way to get started? Kind of give them some, some tips there.
Speaker 3Okay. For sure. So I would, I would encourage any listener to give email replies or try first. You can, like you said, use your phone. If you do have a webcam, one of the easiest ways and the free ways to do this is to use a plugin , a Chrome plugin called loom, which is free. Uh , you basically open , uh , a, a tab in your Chrome browser. You click record. And the beauty of this is you can, you can be full screen or you can show people parts of your website. If you want to show them something specific, maybe it's a blog post that is related to their breed of dog to the location they want to photograph. So you don't have to be full screen if that totally scares you, but, but I would encourage you to put your face on the screen, click record and answer the email. And you don't go into a lot of detail. This is more of an introduction. You can, you can just have a 32nd to one minute video recording introducing yourself and then include extra detail in the actual body of the email. If you don't want to talk for too long, because you want to keep these short and snappy.
Speaker 1Yep . I love it. Yeah. Allume is fantastic. It's L O M for any of you guys out there and yeah, it's free. Your face is little in the corner. If you have, you know, if you're screen sharing , so you don't have to be like all scared about that, but yeah, it's a great thing. I know I've started doing that on some of my client inquiries . When I get a client inquiry I've been jumping on and I'm recording a loom video and I kind of want to I'm in the process of getting ready to redo my website because you know, cobbler's children, my website, like I helped so many other pet photographers with their websites, but my website is right now, like has not had any attention in quite some time. So it needs, it needs a little love, but you know, I'm thinking of even building in like my, I have my welcome guide PDF, but like maybe I build on an extra little page of like some of those information. That's a hidden page that I can go to that page when I do my inquiry and showed them that and tell them what to expect and, you know, have a link to it. So then they can go over it. But I feel like that might be a good way to just thinking off the cuff here. You know, if you're getting to the point, like maybe we even already had the inquiry guide, but then you're sending them a pricing guide. Cause I know a lot of times like the most uncomfortable portrait photography situation is when you're in the sales room and they haven't looked at the pricing. Right? Yeah. So we want to avoid that. So, you know, I always tell people to make sure you're talking about this at some point during the process, but you know, making a little loom video of your pricing PDF, you can go through it and, you know, attach it to that email, but scroll through as you're explaining, Oh, well we talked about some wall art. Here's the different options. Just the Netter's so much more likely they're going to watch it. Exactly.
Speaker 3I interviewed Brian Bussani , who's a US-based photographer and he, he created a loom video or a , a PDO actually him going through his pricing page on his website. And it's really cool. So showing them what each thing is, why, why it costs this and where you can find certain things. It's super simple , just like you're talking about. And he says it works extremely well.
Speaker 1Nice. That's excellent. We'll have to, is it one of the podcasts interviews you have on a little bit ? Awesome. Well , um , I'll get the link from you only get up in the show notes. Um, cause that sounds like a , that sounds like a good one.
Speaker 3One of the things quickly to the email with the email replies for the listener who wants to give this a go that the challenge? Well, first of all, there's two other ways you can do well . A couple of other ways you can do this. If you want to use your phone mobile phone, don't want to use a webcam. There's an app called [inaudible] , which free . That's a really cool way. If you're really into using your mobile phone, that's probably the best app with a free trial to try [inaudible] . And there's an app that I use, which is called BombBomb. And this is more for the more expensive app, but it's fantastic because what it does is when I send it a video email, reply, it embeds a gift with me waving and saying hello. So it's like a , a little quick gift, but it's showing me talking to the client . So what I do is I hold up a little, I little sign, a little whiteboard with a name tag and it would say,
Speaker 1Hey Nicole , Oh, that's brilliant.
Speaker 3You know , this is a personalized video for you. And this is what I do for my clients. And uh , so there's a little gift with me waving and it's got a little white board and it says, Hey, Nicole, you click on that. And then it plays the video, which is a personalized reply to your email inquiry. Yeah ,
Speaker 1That is brilliant. I love the sign just because then they know and their score , they see it in their email and they're like, Oh my gosh, this is, this is for me.
Speaker 3Exactly. So I just, I just, it's a little whiteboard here I have. And I just have, I'm showing the color for the listener. I know you can't see this. And it's just a super simple, really quick, Hey Nicole, and I'm holding this up like this and I'm waving. So that works really well with loom. What you can do, you don't , it's more difficult and too much of a hassle to make a gift. But what you can do is hold the sign up and just grab a quick screenshot of your loom video, embed that into your email reply and make that the link to the video because the challenge we want people to open the email. Yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And then how much information are you putting much , um , like copy and stuff in that email, are you going over most, everything in your video? Um, or a little bit of both, it depends.
Speaker 3Depends what the client has or the prospective client is asked in the email. So if it's just a general inquiry, it's a know how much does it cost or, you know, w availability, what's the price . It's it's me. It's Hey, it's Andrew here from impact images, Austin , to get your inquiring, a call. Um, I love that you bearish now that we've got one, two , and you know, you can believe this. I photograph a couple last week. I'm going to I'll share a blog post to one of those shoots. Um , down below, I've got the extra information in the, in the copy and look , I just wanted to put a face to, and I'll have you put a face to a name and , um , yeah , look, I'm really excited to hear from you and looking forward to hopefully working with you. If there's something you can go into more detail, but you don't want to just drag on about pricing. This is more about making.
Speaker 1Yeah. I love it. I love it again, that being able to bridge that initial inquiry to make that connection makes them so much more likely to continue on in the process.
Speaker 3Yeah. And I would say if when you recording videos, whether it's an email reply or any other kind of video that we talk about, if you have a pet and I'm guessing your listeners all do have your pet pet or your dog or your cat or whatever animal on your lap in the screen, or if they're distracting, you include them in the video. So again, it helps me make a connection I'm in for you. Another listener can't see you in a car, but I'm looking at your background. I'm seeing, you've got books and DVDs up there and , um , uh , on the bookshelf, you've got a sailing boat . So I'm making these little connections by what's happening in the, in the screen. So we want to do that with our perspective.
Speaker 1So I love it. I love it. Awesome. So that's definitely a great way to use this for inquiries. So get working on that guys. What are some other ways that we can use video?
Speaker 3Social media is an easy one, same as Facebook ads and on your website, like you talked about some, a couple of ways that people might not have considered is it's like we, all we know about it . We've talked about in the past, not maybe you and I specifically Nicole, about third party marketing and getting referred by other vendors. So one of the ways you can do or utilize video is to leave testimonials, but other vendors that you would like to be working with to be come known by, to have them refer you. So let's say you go to photograph this, this , uh , owner with a schnauzer and the schnauzer looks beautifully groomed. And you ask about the groomer and you've never worked with a groomer, but you know, they're popular. They have a lot of clients you'd love to connect with them. So why not leave it create a video on your social media account saying that you just photograph this gorgeous Nach NAZA the groomer was such and such pet groomer. And what an amazing job. I've never seen a schnauzer that looks this good. And you post that , that video linking to the dog groomer on your social media page. You also get in touch with the dog groomer, send them the videos so they can see it and make sure they don't miss it. And it's just a great way. There is no way that if you receive a video like that in someone that you're not going to be remembered, they're not going to be referring you. They're not going to be checking out your website, your socials.
Speaker 1That is brilliant. Yeah . Brilliant. Yeah. I think one of the other, so inquiries, maybe number one, like getting them to move forward. The next like biggest pain point that I think so many pet photographers have, and we know we want to do it is making connections with other pet businesses. And how brilliant is that? Because you, even if they're not a dog that usually gets groomed, you can ask like, Oh, does he go to doggy daycare? What dog trainer do you work with? And then it can be, Oh, you know, like you can have fun with it and say, Hey, fluffy here, I'm here for my dog. Shoot. Just wanted to let you know, like I was a good boy because I was trained by so-and-so, you know, Oh man, the possibilities are endless. And what a fun way to make connections. I've actually been finding that making connections with other businesses , uh , through Instagram has been pretty, pretty easy, like an easier way than in the past to make connections with them. Certainly easier than like showing up and asking to speak to someone or cold calling. So this just takes it up quite a few notches.
Speaker 3Everyone has their phone with them. You just put it on selfie mode, you start recording. I mean, you can be taking your dog to the vet. You could be at a pet supply store. You could be trying some new food, but like there's so many ways you can use video to make connections with other business owners. So easy.
Speaker 1I love it. I love it. Oh my gosh. Our listeners heads are going to be exploding like mine. What else? What else do you have on there?
Speaker 3Okay. So let's, let's touch on something that I was thinking about before you came on. I thought might be good for your specific listeners. And I think like every photographer, one of the biggest things I was trying to achieve as I was growing, my business was getting known. So when someone thought of wedding photographer or portrait, I want them to think of me and impact images . That was the aim. And you know, back in the day you could, we had a studio frontage on the one of the main streets. That was great, but it's so much easier now with that, with our phones and using video. So what I thought was, I guess, along the lines of , uh, like personal projects, you could create a little project where you document the local dog parks. You could also go and talk to dog owners and talk about their breed of dog. Let's ask them, would they buy the same breed again? Who would they recommend this breed for? Where do they, where do they get their dog train ? If they're really well-trained , but just make these connections. If you create a little project on your Facebook page, but preferably also on your, on your website, as blog posts, to get people coming onto your website, not only do you get known by the person that you're talking to, that'll be, that'll be sending other people to look at those videos. You can still shoot if you want to as well. But I think video is a much easier way to make a nice connection and just treat that dog owner as the expert, asking them about their dog, why it's so special to them. You can ask them, share a quirky story. What's something crazy that your dogs done. What's something, what's something naughty that your dog's done. You just want to make this connection and get people to our website. Other dog owners, other pet owners to our website and to our social media pages. Super easy, as long as you. And I think most dog owners that find it easy to approach other dog owners, because you already have a dog it's easy. Right .
Speaker 1And everyone loves to talk about their dog. You know, we're not approaching . People will be like, Hey, tell me about your tax return last year. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3And would you, would you see yourself, Nicole, if you're at a local dog park, would you go and talk to other dogs?
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. I, my dog is super reactive, so she doesn't get to go play in the dog, but 100%, anytime I'm around anyone that has a dog where , you know, quickly talking about their dogs . So yes,
Speaker 3The person doesn't want to be on video. You could just have yourself and their dog on video while you read their audio. Let's just tell me about your dog. Who's the I'm thinking of Brandon Stanton. What is it? Uh, was it in the New York project with people in New York? Yes . I mean , you could do it in your own town, dogs off such and such in your own town. And uh, anytime you see a dog or know someone walking the dog, go and talk to them and it could be a 32nd. It could be one minute. It could be a five minute video. You got break on it .
Speaker 1I love it. I love it. And for those of you guys, those introverts out there, they're like, Oh my God, I have to go talk to someone, wait, what ? Let's watch a stranger. I can, I can hear them. I can hear them calling me. And you're gonna say no way, but you guys, you guys were talking about dogs and truly so many people. I mean, I used to be pretty nervous about jumping on Facebook lives and doing those things. And now it's just like, boom, go or I'll mess up at some point, whatever. It just gets so much easier. Just like when we were shooting, learning to shoot our cameras and manual the first couple of times, you're like, okay, wait, do I need, I need to adjust shutter speed, weight up or down. Okay. Then that means I need to adjust the ISO, like you were thinking about it now it's just second nature. So this is the same thing as just a new skill that just takes a little practice and you'll be super confident in it.
Speaker 3And you know, and the best exactly what you're saying is so true, Nicole, and the best thing about video is a little mix up the little stumbles, the interruptions that the , um, the way dogs might react, which might not be, we might be unexpected. They're the things that are gonna make your videos fun to watch. We want to see those things.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. It makes you human because everyone's been in your same situation and yeah. Zoe has definitely yes. Whenever the mailman comes or the ups to deliver a package, there is always an interruption because she must protect the homestead very loud.
Speaker 3I mean, you couldn't even talk to the post then when he comes , if he comes to the end , the dog's going nuts, go and have a quick chat and record a video with him. Hey, what's it? Like, what , what should we do as dog owners?
Speaker 1Right . Right. There is a last year. I think sometime they had, it was a Facebook page that went crazy. It was like ups drivers and their favorite dogs . So it was like ups. Drivers would take pictures of dogs on the route and it was, Oh my gosh. So fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't think pet photographers really appreciate the goldmine of content that we're sitting on and the fact that no one is ever sick of sick animals, especially with everything going on in the world right now, like more animals we need to pull the more animal lover like it, it just makes everybody happy. I love it. I love it. That's fantastic. Um, you also said
Speaker 3One other thing there too, that, you know , people do get, self-conscious like, I'm , I'm talking about the listener now who is afraid to it or thinking that they might be afraid to do video. One of the things when I started a podcast was I hated the sound of my own voice. And like you said, now you just hit record and I don't even hear it. I just that's my voice . I can't change it. And those sorts of things, the way you sound on video, doesn't matter. Like Noah , you're fine. It just sounds strange to you.
Speaker 1Yup . Yeah. And you know, we are so much more critical to ourselves than anyone else. Like there's no one sitting there judging your video. Like, Oh, I was going to book her services, but she messed up. She, you know, her dog interrupted or she forgot what she was saying. So forget it. Nope. Not calling her like not going to happen, but I think that's what we build it up on our head, that all these people are going to be sitting here watching us, judging us. And if there is somebody that judges us, they're certainly not going to be our client, nor would they be a client that we want anyway. So get out there, put yourself ,
Speaker 3They make you more relatable. So yeah. Embrace the mess up.
Speaker 1Yes, yes. Yeah. I mean, just think about how viral all the , uh, like America's funniest home videos, all the just silly home videos go. I mean, people love that stuff. So
Speaker 3Absolutely try to be too perfect . No, that's not the idea of these videos and it's meant to be simple, easy on it. It said raw does straight to the point, put it up there.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, short and sweet. So we shouldn't like, you know, it's not going to be a 20 minute video we have to do. I mean, especially social media, like 30 seconds a minute. Boom. That's all the attention span people have for anything .
Speaker 3Yeah. And for anyone that's thinking this , there's still no way I'd approach a stranger. Like if someone approached you and asked you about your dog, would you talk to them? Like the answer is yes. Every time and you probably light up at the idea of talking about your dog.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. They're not asking you about, you talk about your dog. I love it. That's great. That's fantastic. Are there any other lists that you have there other ways that we can incorporate video their suggestions?
Speaker 3Yeah, definitely. Look, there's, there's a really simple, easy way that I , I try this after hearing it from an interview that I did years ago, I'm still getting, I'm still getting inquiries because of these videos. So what I did was I went around to a local area of mine that is super popular for wedding photographers , wedding photographers, to go to for the location shoot. So for dog owners, this would be local, could be local gold paths could be your local spots where you go to take photos. I know some people get worried about sharing their location. They think, Oh , this is my secret location. But what I found is when I recorded this video or this series of videos, which I did in one afternoon, these spots became known as that's Andrew's spot now images spot that's where Andrew does his photos. So don't be afraid to , to reveal your spots and show them off as great spots and share why they are a great spot . So let me give you example. So down near me, we have a little coastal area rocks, a little Bay, and there's probably five or six different spots around that way. Area that a great book for wedding photos on a wedding day. And they're all a little bit, one's a little bit better than the other, depending on the wind direction. The time of day, whether the shade open shade, full sunlight, depending on what I want to do on the wedding day. So all I did was grab my phone, put it in selfie mode and said why each of these spots is great, but different times of the day, different times of the year, different wind direction. So all of a sudden someone searches, Terrigal Haven, wedding photography. You can still do that right now. I'll come, I'll come up as the first post in Google. I'll rank number one and it's , it's four or five really bad YouTube videos of me when I first tried video like five or six years ago and they still work. And I'm now the expert for wedding photos at Terrigal Haven.
Speaker 1I love it. And that is that a blog post on your website now?
Speaker 3Well, they are, but they're all the YouTube videos. And I would encourage anyone that wants to get more into video and wants to improve their SEO is to post their videos to YouTube. Doesn't matter, no one ever sees them. They will, but if no one still sees them, you still got links. You add links back to your website from those YouTube videos. And the secret is, or the big tip is to make sure that you use the full URL. So it's an actual hyperlink going back to your website and it can go to the specific blog posts. They can go to your dog page. It can go to your location page or can go to your home. But you want to have links for every video going back to your website from YouTube.
Speaker 1Nice. Yeah, the, I was reading something on their day and uh, yeah, YouTube is the second biggest as a search engine. Really? So, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3So , um, yeah, it's the more back links you can create pointing to your website. You become the authority. So the authority of wedding photography at Terrigal Haven by just producing those videos one afternoon and they are dodgy. Like they don't look great or something. They work really well. And the funny thing is I get inquiries from usually UK couples coming back home to get married. So they're doing some searches and I get an inquiry. I , us Terrigal Haven for the listener, you could do local pets . Do you have off the lease parks or Felicia areas where you can walk your dog or let your dog off the leash, we'll run dog parks. You can create video content like that super easy. You don't need your big SLR. It's just the phone. And you're saying why this is such a good ,
Speaker 1It can do. Yeah. The best hikes with your dog in the area. Yeah. I always think for my target market, it's usually young professionals. So, you know, the best dog friendly breweries or wineries in the area is always a popular topic too.
Speaker 3And you walk in there with your dog, you record a little video in the brewery having a beer or wine or whatever you like. Yeah ,
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah. And then they share it, you know, and I love that vendor idea because that is brilliant because you can tag them it to them and be like, Hey, I was there. I , you know , took the picture to start . So made a little video of some of your dog patrons today. Just wanted to share it with you. I'm sure they're going to put it up on their social media. And then all of a sudden look, you're out to their social media as the pet photographer, you know, in the area. So, yeah. Brilliant.
Speaker 3And then, and then, so that's on their social media. It's on your social media, potentially a blog post. You put it on YouTube. You've got a link back to your website or from this one or two minute video, you know ? Yeah .
Speaker 1That you just fill them with your phone. Yep . Yep . I love it. I love it. Don't need a DSLR. I love it. That's fantastic. Yeah. It makes me think. Even maybe showing my age way back when I lived in Florida after college, I was one, the Blair witch project came out that movie and it was like intentionally all dodgy and crazy how it was filmed as if it was filmed. It was like these like kids in the woods. And it was like one of the first like reality looking, filming things. So yeah, you can just stream your inner , uh , Blair witch , uh , director vibe and go get some dog photos.
Speaker 3You don't need to have any fancy equipment to keep your phone super still you just handheld it. I will say, I will say in a goal, this is really, really bad, but listen to , well , not like this, but a selfie stick. Does some of these videos a lot easier. I feel like an absolute goose walking down Life a lot easier. If you want to record some of these videos, particularly if it's say in the dog park and you want to do like an interview type thing. Yeah . I wouldn't walk up with my selfie stick, but
Speaker 1I will certainly get the okay.
Speaker 3And then grab it to make it easier .
Speaker 1That's funny. I love it. I was going to say too, there's a lot of gimbals out there that if somebody wants to take their video up up a notch or two, they're usually fairly affordable for, you know, for your phone, which will just kind of move it. If you don't know what a gimbal is, just kind of pans your phone pretty evenly, you know? Sure. They have really fancy ones for Hollywood, but they have really easy handheld ones for us.
Speaker 3Yeah. The ones today are amazing. I mean, they got vibration dampening. They keep everything super still and smooth. Like it looks really pro, but again, you do not need that to start with.
Speaker 1Yeah . Yeah. Oh yeah. No, this is definitely extra credit. If you're like, I love this video thing. This is so fun and I'm , and you're really into it. Then, then you can look into that, but definitely don't need it to get started. Awesome. Uh , gosh, there's so many, so many good things. Are there any other areas that people should consider maybe using some video,
Speaker 3Couple of other ones we can touch on definitely website. I mean, like you talked about having a thank you page after someone sends you a message using your contact form, it could even just be on your about page and it doesn't, you know, if again, it should be with your pets, it should be showing your personality. It can show your home. But if it , now, again, it depends a little bit on your, on your brand. So if you're going for high-end clients and your house is an absolute mess, then obviously you're not going to need your house in the background. You're going to maybe get somewhere else to shoot. But if your , if your house, your lifestyle, the way you live, your way, your pet's looked after and looks matches with your ideal client, then absolutely go for it. Like show us your kids, show a shift, your husband, or your wife, your partner, show us your dog, the dog food brands that you're using. Let us into your life, you know , out walking the dog on the, on the weekend or running the trails, whatever, if that's you, if you're a fitness buff and you're running with your dog through the truck, show us that, let us into your life and connect with you if that's okay .
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. Cause pretty much all of us, unless you're running a big giant photography studio, we're all personal brands. So yeah. People want to connect with us.
Speaker 3Yeah. And , and just on the opposite side, if you prefer sitting on the lounge with your feet up in a box of popcorn or chips and a Coke or a beer, and you've got your dog cuddled up there on your tummy while you're watching the sport, but that's fine.
Speaker 1Absolutely. You're like , come in. I'm pretty jealous. That looks nice right now. I love it.
Speaker 3Well, I mean, we touched on social media, but I would definitely encourage people that are enjoying the videos or want to try them or become known as the local expert to , to test out video ads on Facebook and Instagram as well. This is one of the, if you're going to use video as an ad, I would use some what I would call a dog whistle headline in my video ad. So you want to call out to your specific target audience. So, you know , if you're photographing and building a , uh , let's say a promo for long haired dogs, do you live in South Carolina? Do you have a long head dog that you absolutely adore? Are you up for some fun and adventure on the local trails? Okay. So now if I, if I have a long haired dog, I live in South Carolina and I'm up for some fun adventure. I know that you're talking to me, I'm going to go on and watch the rest of that video. Anyone that has a two or three or five minute video, we know they're interested. And then we can go on to either re target them or keep serving them extra ads, get them to our website and go from there, make a connection. Yeah .
Speaker 1Yes. I love that. I love that. And one of the things you mentioned too about it just popped into my head of other ideas that people at home can use for videos for social media is you have a new order coming in from clients, instead of taking a picture of that. Why don't you say, Hey, you know, and tag your client and say, this just arrived. Look how beautiful this album block is. This wall pieces, this album, whatever it is. And instead of just taking a still picture of it, you can, you know, make connections that way. There's just so much, I mean, you can do a quick video of getting ready for your shoot tomorrow of just, I'm so excited to meet, you know, fluffy and her mom. We're going to go to the park and do you know, and just have a little 32nd with you packing your bag. Gosh, so many things.
Speaker 3There's so many and video, it's like, everyone's got fast internet speeds. These days, it's easy to record. They look great straight out of the phone. It's super simple to do. And everyone's looking content. It's all around us. We all want, one of the things I hear from, from photographers is I don't know what to blog about. Like, Oh my God, there's a million things. Just have a look at your emails. Any email that you've sent out, answering a question, that's a blunt . You know , if you want to .
Speaker 1Yeah. That's what I always tell people to , to , to brainstorm everything that your client needs to know before booking, you should be a blog post. Like, Oh my dog's hyper. That's a blog post. Like take a video of you with your dog. I'll take Zoe outside. She's running around and jumping and can't even see her. She's running so fast. You'd be like, Hey, guess what? I could photograph dogs like this, no problem. You know? Yeah . So many things.
Speaker 3I love it . A lot of people, when they're thinking about blog posts, we know that Google is looking for actual copy. It's looking for text on the page. So if you find videos super easy and a lot of people do, then what you do is you send your video file over to rev, rev.com. And you can have it. You can have it transcribed either by a human or you can have it done automatically. Then there's other ways you can do this. If you haven't done it automatically by rev, it's super cheap. It's like, it's less, less than a couple of dollars then . Yeah . Then you can just tidy up that copy and you have a blog post with the video. Okay. And I'll be using that copy then on your website, I'd probably change it up slightly and use it on YouTube. Is that friction , because you're going to be naturally saying your keyword phrases while you actually record these videos, you know , are you a trail running dog lover? Who's based in South Carolina. So you've got your keywords in there just when you're talking to your mate , creating your video, you're going to want to use all those keywords in your copy on your blog posts in YouTube.
Speaker 1Just brilliant. I love it . Believer too, of just repurposing that content. You know, you create it once and then you have things. So you said, you know, blog posts, YouTube, social media at Facebook ads. I mean, it can go to all of these places and it's one piece of content that you create.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly. So you've got a random record, the local off-leash dog areas in your , in your local area. I mean , you've got, yeah, you've got so much content just from that one little topic,
Speaker 1Such a great thing too , that you then come up on Google for people searching, not necessarily for pet photography, because still a pet photography people. How many times you say, Hey, I'm a pet photographer. They're like really that's a thing. So that tells me there's still a lot of people that don't even know pet photography is a thing. So how many more people would want our services if they knew we existed. So if you have this blog post of the best hikes in the Charlotte area with your dog, the best dog friendly hikes in the Charlotte area, guess what people are Googling that all day long. And I'm sure there's not a ton of , um, articles already out there on that. So it probably wouldn't be that hard to rank on that first page. And then you have all of these new people coming to your website because you created this little blog post about something that they're searching for, that they weren't necessarily looking for a pet, but then all of a sudden they're like, Oh, it's interesting pet photography.
Speaker 3Exactly. And then my blog posts , you would have some of your amazing photography we'll potentially photograph on that trial or another trial. It doesn't matter. You don't have to overthink this. And, and you said something really interesting then Nicole, you said that there might not be a lot of competition for those search terms . Well , this is a really cool thing about videos . So before I recorded my videos on Terrigal Haven, wedding photography spots, there was other photographers ranking for those keywords . So I created the videos, put them on YouTube and now Google shows them at the top of the video.
Speaker 1Yeah, actually I think about it when you search, you have your search results, but you also have video results now because Google has worked at YouTube in there because well, it's all owned by Google.
Speaker 3They want, and they know that their viewers want to see video. Yeah.
Speaker 1I remember it was some crazy stat probably five years ago. I read that it was just the insane amount of like everything consumed online by like 20, 23 was going to be like almost all video. Like that's all people want is just video.
Speaker 3Exactly. Yeah. We haven't even mentioned Tik TOK. I'm an on , not on the planet. Are you on there?
Speaker 1I, I sometimes download it and find that I get sucked in way too long. Like I have to take this off my phone. This is just dangerous.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I haven't, I don't have an account other than just , uh , to, you know, entertain myself or what should be five minutes and ends up being half an hour.
Speaker 3So many options at the end is only going to be more, you know , in the , in the video. Yeah ,
Speaker 1Absolutely. Oh my gosh. I love this so much. So if there was one takeaway for our listeners out there, what would it be?
Speaker 3Try email replies first, because it's the safest, you're only sending it to one person if not going out there to the whole world. And I think what the listener will find, if they do two or three of these, they will get feedback on the recipient and go, Oh my God, I've never had an email like that. It's so good to put a face to a name. This is so cool. And you think, wow, why haven't I been doing this for the last five years?
Speaker 1I love it. Yeah. And so to do that, it would be Bundoora or loom would probably be the two easiest.
Speaker 3Definitely the easiest. Yeah, don't over . Think it it's really just a 32nd snippet to put a face to a name. Um , one, one really big tip is if you want to be smiling before you hit record. So the same way you've probably been taught. And the way you known Nicole is when you pick up the phone to call the client, you're actually smiling before you answer the phone or before you actually get picked up. Um, because it, it transfers across through the phone and it's even more obvious on the video . So obviously if you're not a Myla , you don't need to put on a big fake smile. Um , exactly . Normal, happy face. The other big thing is you want to have eye contact with the lens of the camera, whether it's your webcam or your phone. It's really tricky for a lot of people with the phone that aren't used to recording video. They tend to look at themselves on the screen. As you put a post-it note over the screen, look at the lens, okay. Because that's how you're going to be making eye contact. So if I was talking to you , Nicole, I'd be looking right at my webcam and recording this way instead of actually looking at you on my screen. Absolutely .
Speaker 1Yeah. Those are great tips for sure. But yeah. To get people started, we have a little context .
Speaker 3We do. Yeah. Giveaway who doesn't love a contest. Go ahead and share. Yeah . So we're going to give away, I think I said five, five entries in daily flow challenge. So this is for your listeners for you, the listener. So there's, there's five chances to win this. All we need to see, and you can, you can send these to Nicole or we can, we can work out how to do this afterwards, but I want to see proof that you've created three videos. So the first people first by people to create three videos, we'll get a free entry into the next daily blog challenge. And if you're unaware of what that is, that's a challenge that I've put on. It's a three-week challenge and we have the weekends off. I sent you a small video task every single day that you can do with your phone. And we, we lean this towards a business focus, both photographers, and you watch the little instructional video, you record a two minute video or less uploaded into a private Facebook group. And I'll give you feedback and help with your video. And you'll find that after three weeks it becomes totally natural, super easy. You do it in one take Watson or , and video just becomes a natural part of your, your marketing or your business life. So we've got five of those to give away Nicole .
Speaker 1Oh, I love it. I love it. And what you said too , that by the end of the three weeks, like at the beginning, you're like, Oh , delete, start again, delete, start again. But at the end of like, even after probably a week and a half, you're like, okay, whatever, that was good. Um, and you just get so much more comfortable just by doing it. So yeah. So what did we say? Three videos. They have to give us proof of three videos. Yeah.
Speaker 3And that can be any email replies that could be testimonials from vendors. They give you on your social media, they could be ads that could be on your website, whatever. Perfect. Yeah .
Speaker 1And they have to be new videos guys. So you're pulling from the past. All right. So this podcast it's December 22nd, 2020. If you guys are listening to this on the day of its release, we are going to give you until January 15th to record three new videos. So it can be an inquiry video. It can be putting something on your about page. It can be putting something else out of your website. It can be some social media snippets, you know, meeting those dogs at the park, Don tagging some vendors. Oh my gosh, you guys, if you don't have three ideas from listening to this podcast, go back and start again because there are so many ideas in here and all you have to do by the end of the day on January 15th is upload proof, just a screenshot of those three videos on the forum and it's www.hairofthedogacademy.com forward slash vlog challenge. So the letter V is in Victor, L O G challenge, all one word blog challenge , um , of the dog academy.com/vlog challenge, January 15th, five people are going to win a free seat in Andrews daily video challenge. And it's going to be awesome. I'm looking forward to that . It's going to be fun. I love it. That's awesome. So yeah. So how else Andrew, can people find you and you know what, where can they continue to learn all the amazing business? Goodness, there's two places. The easiest one is PhotoBiz x.com. That's photo Zed , x.com. That's where you'll see all the interviews with people, amazing people like you , Nicole. And uh , if people want to check out the daily log challenge, they can go to daily vlog , challenge.com daily. I love it. I love it. So you guys definitely check that out. And the thought of his podcast is one of my favorites. It is the best business photography business podcast that I've heard. Don't tell anyone else. So good things are getting Andrew for being here with us. We really appreciate you taking the time and dropping some mad video knowledge on everybody. And I can't wait to see what everybody does with this. Thanks , Nicole . It's been a real pleasure. See you guys all next week.
Speaker 2Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog podcast. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to leave a review. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss our upcoming episodes . One last thing, if you are ready to dive into more resources, head over to our website@wwwdothairofthedogacademy.com. Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.